Beach Betty's surf report: Stupid shoobie tricks

"People come down for the summer and the ocean looks so nice. They don't realize what it does when they're not around." - Mayor Jon Oldham

Video: Harvey Cedars dune case defendant says, "We're not just selfish."Phyllis Karan, along with her husband Harvey, were awarded by a jury $375,000 to compensate them for the loss of their ocean view after the town of Harvey Cedars condemned a strip of their land to build a 22-foot dune as a storm protection measure. On the day that the New Jersey Supreme Court overturned that decision, Phyllis Karan compared the taking of the land to "Nazi Germany" but said Hurricane Sandy may make them rethink their opposition to the dune. (Video by Brian Donohue/The Star-Ledger)

Like just about everyone who lives at the Shore, I was happy to see the New Jersey Supreme Court throw out that $375,000 judgment awarded to a greedy, selfish, self-centered couple who care more about their view than their neighbors' survival.

Did I mention they were also stupid even by the liberal standards of shoobies?

"Shoobies" is what the locals call bennies who venture south of Long Beach Island. For more on that, read this column in the New York Times in which Ben Zimmer tackles the subject of the words' origins.

In the case of the Karans, the couple made the classic clueless tourist assumption that just because the waves are small in summer, they're small the rest of the year as well.

We surfers know otherwise. Every year, we watch huge waves from nor'easters pound the beaches. Most years we see significant erosion. It was only a matter of time before we saw a storm like Sandy - 50 years to be exact. That was the March 6-7 storm of 1962, which tore Long Beach Island in half not far from where the above interview took place.

"People come down for the summer and the ocean looks so nice," Harvey Cedars Mayor Jonathan Oldham told me when I interviewed him for this column on the Karan case. "They don’t realize what it does when they’re not around."

In the course of researching that column, I got a good look at the dune in front of the Karan house. That dune saved their house, no doubt about it. Even with the massive 22-foot dune in place, the sand was eroded by the storm within about 10 feet of the home.

If the Karans had gotten to keep their flat beach with an ocean view, then they would have been able to see to ocean in their living room that evening - if they stuck around. That's something shoobies don't do when things get rough. They let the locals handle it.

Well, the locals are sick of it and this court decision should be the beginning, not the end, of the effort to make tourists take responsibility for their property.

As Long Beach Township Mayor Joe Mancini told me in this column, if these shoobies want to assert ownership rights to the beach, then they should assume liability when their sand ends up in someone else's house a block inland.

And they should be on the hook for damages due to inland flooding if they let the ocean break through to the bay over their property. As Mancini noted, bayfront homeowners are required by law to have their lots bulkheaded to prevent erosion. The same should apply to oceanfront homeowners.

The method for achieving this is simple and elegant.

A rainbow over the ocean Monday evening. Below what looks like a sand dune is the sea wall that saved Bay Head from the fate of places like Mantoloking and Ortley beach.(Paul Mulshine)

The accompanying photo of a rainbow that I took Monday evening shows what looks like a sand dune but is really sand covering a 16-foot sea wall made of boulders.That sea wall is the reason Bay Head is back in business while nearby Mantoloking still remains in ruins.

Note the contrast with this photo of the same spot that I took just before dark on Monday, October 29.

The waves from Sandy hit the Bay Head sea wall in this photo I took just two hours before the storm peaked Oct. 29.(Paul Mulshine)

If I had my druthers, there would be a law requiring every oceanfront homeowner in a vulnerable area to construct such a wall. In fact, many forward-looking homeowners in Mantoloking did just that during the spring. That sea wall now spreads south quite a way into that town, but you'd never know it. Once it's covered with sand, a sea wall looks like a dune.

The sea wall under construction. (Ignore the date; the photo was taken with a borrowed digital camera a few months ago.) (Paul Mulshine)

It's only when a storm arrives that you can tell the difference. And the difference is that the wall keeps the ocean from breaking through to the bay.

If Mantoloking had had such a wall pre-Sandy, thousands of homes farther inland could have been spared major damage. In its absence, the ocean broke through to places like Brick Township and Toms River where year-round residents lost their homes - just so the bennies could have nice views.

The beach looking south from Mantoloking Monday afternoon. Once the sand has been piled up, it's impossible to tell the difference between the dunes that are reinforced by sea walls and those that aren't.(Paul Mulshine)

By the way, the danger is far from over in places like Mantoloking. Beach Betty and I are in the habit of taking long runs on the affected beaches.
They are not in good shape.
Sandy was just the first of a relentless cycle of nor'easters that tore up the beaches.
They're still very narrow in the hardest-hit areas, such as Mantoloking, Brick Beach and Ortley Beach. Another big storm this fall could wreak havoc again.

Those plans for sand replenishment remain on the back burner. And after seeing what I saw last October, I would never again trust mere sand against a storm. I saw spots where 25-foot-high dunes were reduced to nothing. The Army Corps' plans call for dunes of just 22 feet.

Meanwhile all up and down the Shore the government has spent tens of millions rebuilding boardwalks, most of which are not protected by sea walls. Again the bennies' desire for a view of the water trumps common sense.

Here's a hint: If you want a view of the water, go to the beach. Those boardwalks are sitting ducks for another storm.

Tropical Storm Chantal is kicking around the Caribbean. In other words, we're only up to "C" with a lot of alphabet left to go.